Martin Crampin: 'Paterchurch Tower and St Patrick' (2023)

Description

Lede
A medieval tower located behind the dockyard wall in Pembroke Dock provides a link with the patron saint of Ireland.

Story
The oldest building in Pembroke Dock is the tower that stands behind the dockyard wall on Fort Road. Although the Anglican church in Pembroke Dock, dedicated to St John the Evangelist, appears to have a tall tower that is similar to other distinctive medieval Pembrokeshire church towers, the church was only built in the 1840s.

The Paterchurch family owned a large estate that stretched from Pennar Point east to Cosheston from around the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and the tower was probably attached to a church. A mansion on the site had been reduced to ruins by the nineteenth century. Although the history of the church is obscure, burials nearby indicate that there was a cemetery here.

The occupation of the site by David de Patrickchurch in the early fifteenth century suggests that Patrick was probably the patron of the medieval church. The surviving tower seems to have been used as a lookout post, and fireplaces in the rooms, arranged in three storeys, indicates that the tower was used domestically for many years.

The cult of St Patrick appears to have been quite strong in Pembrokeshire and a tradition that Patrick left Pembrokeshire for Ireland dates back to at least the eleventh century. The writer Rhygyfarch ap Sulien, in his Life of St David, tells us that Patrick was encouraged by an angel to leave in order to make way for St David, even though he would not be born for another thirty years. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his twelfth-century history of the kings of Britain, stated that Patrick had founded the diocese of Menevia (St Davids) and foretold the birth of St David. His image was found on the shrine of St David at St Davids Cathedral in the late Middle Ages, and has been restored there in a new icon alongside the patrons of the cathedral, St Andrew and St David.

Other churches or chapels dedicated to Patrick were found to the north of Pembrokeshire near Nevern and at Whitesands near St Davids. The church at Whitesands has been lost to the sea although burials have been found there and continuing erosion of the site has necessitated recent archaeological investigation of the chapel site by Dyfed Archaeological Trust and the University of Sheffield.

In Pembroke Dock, Patrick is remembered in the dedication of another church in Pennar, built between 1893–5. Patrick and David are found together in the east window of the Catholic church in Pembroke Dock. The church was built mainly for the Irish Catholic community in the town and the east window was made in 1929 by the artist Paul Woodroffe. Both are shown a bishops, and Patrick has a long beard to emphasise his age. David is a younger figure and has a boy at his side, who is perhaps intended to represent one of his young disciples, although why the boy is naked is unclear.

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